The Iowa Review
Volume 22
Issue 1 Winter
Article 29
1992
A Form of One's Own: Virginia Woolf 's Art of the
Portrait Essay
Jocelyn Bartkevicius
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Bartkevicius, Jocelyn. "A Form of One's Own: Virginia Woolf 's Art of the Portrait Essay." The Iowa Review 22.1 (1992): 123-134. Web.
Available at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview/vol22/iss1/29
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A Form of One's Own: Virginia Woolf
'sArt
of the Portrait Essay -JocelynBartkevicius
READ PRIMARILY for herwork as awriter and critic of fiction, Virginia
Woolf
years
also a life-long
was
essayist and critic of the essay. In 1903 ?twelve
a novel ?she
career as an
began her
essayist,
publishing
a collection of
and
editing,
carefully binding
literary essays about
In
and other liter
1904, her essays?portraits
places, and events.1
before
writing,
people,
as well
ary essays
as cultural
and literary criticism?began
to be
continue
published
appearing
in
her
periodicals, where
they would
throughout
life. In 1905, she wrote,
"The peculiar form of the essay implies a peculiar
substance; you can say in this shape what you cannot with equal fitness say
in any other."2
two essay sketches,
The following
here for the first time,
published
's continuing
her
reflect Woolf
last decade, to the essay
attention,
through
as a
is from a
Memories,"
literary form.3 The first sketch, "Incongruous
that includes sketches for several literary essays and
June 1930 notebook
portraits, among them, "Evening Over Sussex," and portraits of Christina
wrote
it five years after
Rossetti
and George Eliot. Woolf
The
publishing
as
Common Reader (a collection
concerned
the
with
essay
similarly
imagi
two years after Orlando
native literature),
work
aspects of
combining
(a
and one year after A Room of One's Own. Two
and fiction),
portraiture
years later she published The Common Reader, Second Series and began The
In 1938, she
she called, in her diaries, "an essay novel."
Pargiters, which
published
Three Guineas.
impressions,"
but most
"Roger
or 1936
Fry")
did not
Woolf
date
it between
likely wrote
(when she began reading
a series of
"Roger
Fry:
1935
she
delivered
(when
for her book-length
biog
raphy of Fry) and 1940 (when she published that biography). During this
from
1928
to 1941,
she wrote
essays and sketches,
"On
them "The
and the Fish," "Gas,"
111," "Leslie
among
Being
on
six
and
"Walter
Sickert"
London,
essays
(an essay that, like
Stephen,"
the Fry sketch, explores
links between
talk and portraiture,
and between
period,
many
other
Sun
the observed
These
and the imagined).
two sketches discuss and demonstrate
essay, especially
the portrait
essay,
as she entered
Woolf
's aesthetic
of the
the last decade of her life.
123
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The
essay,
pretended
"accuracy";
is not
here,
exposition,
observer. For
objective
truth requires amerging
iswhere
the remembered,
portraiture
these sketches, Woolf
its peculiar
Editor's
Note
on
of observation
seen, heard,
and imagination.
And
and interpreted join. In
the portrait essay's fluidity
the truth of a life.
celebrates
to capture
ability
article, or debate, and the essayist no
writes
truth, Woolf
here, differs from
and explores
the Text:
In editing these manuscripts,
my goal has been to provide both a legible,
revised sketch, and a sense of how Woolf
about and worked
thought
of
the
To
preserve each of her dele
portrait essay.
through her aesthetic
tions would
to follow,
the texts very difficult
for there are many
a
sentence.
in
several
deletions
Thus, where
single
make
crossouts ?sometimes
or a
to a new loca
single word crossed out,
phrase moved
tion in the sentence?I
have honored Woolf
's revision without
noting the
in
I
's revised
the
of
list
deletions.
offer
Woolf
change
only
(For example,
seem minor
?a
from "One day at some fair he saw a tele
at some sale he found a
are almost a
scope"
day
telescope." There
I have corrected obvious
In addition,
dozen such deletions.)
mispellings,
intact
left
but
Woolf's
characteristic
such as peculiar punc
idiosyncracies,
use of
and inconsistent
tuation, use of ampersands,
apostrophes. Where
sentence where
she switched
to "One
Woolf
has deleted
a
longer passage,
about portraiture,
ner of
thinking
sages in the section
tions.)
Bracketed
and where
I preserve
the changes reflect her man
the deleted words
and pas
are
such dele
twenty-four
(There
in the
the text mark
their location
labelled "Deletions."
numbers
within
to numbers
in the Deletions
section. Brackets
and correspond
manuscript
to
's hand has been especially difficult
also enclose words where Woolf
to indicate
editorial judgment.
For example,
in "Incon
here are rich in implication.
a shift from
as a
gruous Memories,"
they indicate
thinking of "inaccuracy"
or as some
sort of accident, or as something
that doesn't really matter,
a reader can never find out about, to a sense of
as a kind of
thing
inaccuracy
decipher,
Woolf
artistic
's revisions
statement ?a
also emphasize
use
imagination
among
124
a kind
result of the words
of collaboration
to discover
literary forms,
"truth."
autobiography
that are available.
between
writer
The changes
and reader?both
the revision
that
suggests
Finally,
to
be
suited
the
of
kind
may
peculiarly
as important,
to "lesser" writers
aswell
(it is available
in
Revisions
the
sketch
the
also
celebrate
role of
"august" ones).
Fry
the imagination
and collaboration
and sub
(in this case, between writer
was
weaves
in each sketch, Woolf
her goal for The Pargiters,
ject). As
a passage focused on her aesthetic of the essay
a
together
portrait with
a
a
demonstration
ofthat
aesthetic,
passage that makes
portrait.
"truth"
she describes
as to
Text
Quentin
(excluding introduction and editorial notes) copyright 1992 by
Bell
and Angelica
Bell and theHenry W.
Public
Library,
Astor,
Garnett.
Reprinted
by permission
of Quentin
and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York
Lenox
and Tilden
Foundations.
125
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Incongruous
Memories2
The other day one of our well known writers was
curacy in his account of the death bed behaviour
taken to task for [1] inac
of a celebrated man.
[2]
or that.
not matter,
His excuse was?
this
for
does
the
purpose of
[3]
[4]It
remarks is to protest that inaccuracy is very often a superior
the following
form of truth. [5] Those who read, whether
poetry, fiction or biography,
know that some words or scenes have a peculiar power to go on living, &
in the mind long after the context has been forgotten.
possibly growing
[6]
the authors would
the
And it may be held?possibly
idea
?that
support
of some scene are [7] not travesties,
these expansions & transformations
[8]
is only the
& that the life which
the scene puts on in the readers mind
a natural process,
proper unfurling & expansion,
[9]
[proved] by words
a
some reason
for
with
when
are,
meaning.
highly charged
Clearly,
they
stir up others,
about in the mind,
live scene will
split, knock
[alter]
a
so
&
memories
form
further
group which may
[10]
perhaps, associations,
the original. Yet, were
the
be hardly recognisable when
compared with
one
the effect that his words had,
author there, & could
present him with
he might be the first towelcome the bastard& to say that though he had
all this out, this was what he meant ?all
this was
implicit.
a great power of this sort;
of
has
course; & some
Turgenev
Shakespeare
no doubt owe their sugges
times Jane Austin.
[11] These august writers
or three
to supreme
tive power
artistry?there
they say, letting fall two
so stop,
one
words or making
leaving the
phrase ?that will do the trick; &
not written
reader to realise by degrees [12] that he has taken a charge of gunpowder
into his head, which
long after rolls its echoes along the hills and valleys of
the soul. [13]
no reticence, no great power
no
artistry,
people of
same
in autobiog
the
sometimes
possess
gift ?especially
language,
their narrative; & nothing happens from page to
raphy. On they plod with
no
reason, they summon up some scene [14] which begins
page; then, for
But far lesser writers,
over
at once
to swell & move
& float &
is never
afterwards
to be dislodged,
else that one
so much
about got mixed up with
though it has in knocking
the original.
would
be sorry ever again to compare it with
Here by way of sample is a scene of the kind ?taken
from what
bio
or
to run like
It appears inmemory
scarcely matters.
autobiography
graphy
a certain farm
in the early part of the 19th Century,
this ?There
was,
127
house
on the border
and his elderly wife,
an
[15] in which dwelt
elderly gentleman
late marriage
had been blessed by one son.
of Scotland,
whose
They were very poor, & very proud; the last of their race, [16]which had
that only one wing
of the old house was
sunk into such decrepitude
since he came to
inhabited:
the boy's name, perhaps was Henry.
And,
now
his biography & perhaps to occupy some post under aVictorian
gov
he was a boy of some initiative,
ernment,
ardour, & longing for experi
ence. At any rate while
in the
his father slumbered & his mother
knitted
write
quiet dying mansion,
he would
steal to the tower,
he furnished barely enough, [butwith]
from
his fathers
study, which
he would
[17] which
by degrees
a bench and few books begged
study there late at night
under
the
stars.
the old people & the two servants had gone to
go, when
bed, & read in folios & quartos about Popes & prelates; wars in [18] Hun
gary & all the ancient lore of the ancient world?about
chemistry & astrol
There
ogy &
he would
[then] about battles, policies & dead men's doings ?until
he
in aworld
of the dead. Corpses. Many
thought himself the only survivor
miles separated his fathers house from any other. The fields that used to be
&
cultivated were now thick with weeds;
the old roads were overgrown
to be
in
winter
Life
In
mud.
seemed
from
them.
these
deep
ebbing away
to the stars, which
his thoughts
turned naturally
could be
circumstances,
in all their mystery.
the tower window,
One day at some
through
a
a
sale he found
the relict of clergyman's
it for
telescope,
library, & bought
some
it
it
in
tower
home
?mounted
the
Now
window.
shillings,
lugged
?
after another
every night he swept the skies, & noted one constellation
named
them from his books,
became
their glittering
acquainted with
seen,
names &
imagined the abysses
so
ing house, were sweeping
through which he in his tower, & the sleep
was in a fair way to have gone
incessantly. He
himself the only inhabitant of the glittering world.
mad & to have thought
But one day?it was midsummer,
& the light [19] bright in the sky the
to level his
at the earth. He got the focus of the
fancy took him
telescope
on this side, here a rock, there
see
the sheep moving
distant hills ?he
could
a shrub. Lower
he pointed it, upon a clump of trees. They glittered
leaf by
it. This time it rested upon a farm house ?there
leaf. Again he lowered
were the vane, the door, the stocks
against the old grey walls ?&
glowing
then,
within
128
the disc [fastened aptly] upon two faces: aman, awoman;
suddenly,
that ring of intense visibility. Henry held them fast, & saw them
away as itwas, the shock was tremendous. There was life, love,
his telescope aside, he crushed his hat on his head and
[power]. Sweeping
? to
in process of
become
rushed downstairs
along the road into the world
Itmay have been ?
it Sir Henry Taylor of the Colonial Office?
time ?was
kiss: Miles
all the rest is forgotten.5
Roger
Fry: a series of
impressions6
I have not aimed at accuracy of date or fact. I
these impressions
a
have tried to make a portrait of Roger
Fry almost as novelist might make
a character in fiction.
to
I have taken this course
inability
partly through
In writing
from a critical point of view; and partly because he him
[1] offered to sit for a portrait. He was to talk about himself, and I
to take notes and write a
was to be allowed full
[2] life inwhich fiction
deal with
his work
self once
was
play?the
create
place;
idea being that itwas only by having full liberty to invent and
that a true life could be written.
the sittings never took
to
so that the
I have nothing but memory
portrait is
depend upon;
an
amore
serve
in
it
written
sketch
the
that
may
impressionist
hope
Unhappily
merely
serious biographer.
I
aman and awoman,
strolled in a garden
Many years ago two figures,
on the banks of the Cam. Both were
look
tall, there was a distinguished
as
came
are
to
was
about them. It
natural
those people?
ask,
they
by, Who
a summer afternoon,
was
answer.
was
It
the
and
and
his
wife"
"Roger Fry
a
to
connect
two
moment
the
themselves with the beauty
figures seemed for
of the flowers
and the willows
and the sliding river. Next
moment
the pic
ture had vanished.
name
a certain
in
Roger
Fry however,
meaning
insensibly gathered
of the next few years. In those quiet days before the war there
was
a little group of
in the background
always somewhere
people who got
to
revive
ancient
musical
instruments,
up lectures, wished
supported classi
the current taste in dress and furniture,
cal concerts, withstood
and col
The
the course
lected
is,?
century
eighteenth
seemed to be among
name that
tables. Roger
Fry?his
on hand made
a circular,
them. When
printed
chairs
and
129
a series of lectures on
be held at
paper, announced
early Italian Art would
it seemed fitting that Roger
five thirty in Leighton House,
Fry should be
the lecturer. His name suggested rows of people sitting soberly listening to
some 'course' or other; and also it
colour
very discreet water
suggested
one brown cow or one white
in the right
paintings, with
sheep precisely
or an oil
a swan
on a lake, while
a
of
painting
place;
sailing
youth stretch
over dabbles his hand in the
waters.
It seemed to be essential in
ing
placid
occu
those days if you cared for art, to dislike the present; to be perpetually
to get back to amore austere and more
pied in trying
peaceful age, when
an
was
were
furniture
made by hand,
and dig
handmade,
age when
things
was
nified and rightly placed. Roger
that
and it
world;
Fry
accepted by
no reason
should not go on for
why that world
of art lovers and philistines
should not exist side
ever, [3] the two worlds,
its own way and ignoring
the other.
by side each going
seemed
then that there was
Those
were
the associations
that made
the name of Roger
Fry dim and
respectable.
Roger
Frys
name
had become
rather dim
and quiet.
[4]
. . .
But
Those
three dots
are a tribute
to human weakness.
When
awhole
con
is so jumped out
the mind
Of course there must have
ception is swept away and another substituted,
of its bearings that it is incapable of observation.
some tie, and have looked in
been a gradual transition; he must have worn
a series of
this way or in that; but all these details have been obliterated,
by
room
one
impressions,
chiefly of colour by
single impression ?the
[5] had
was true. The chairs and tables were strewn
changed. Strictly speaking this
in Manchester
for the natives of Africa.
with
patterns of cotton made
were
in pots
pictures of chrysanthemum
Propped up against the walls
seemed to flare away like roaring fires of red paint. Then there was a
which
on his head; and a
a
still wet canvas, depicting Christ
portrait of
standing
were
left cheek was composed
of a cheque upon which
lady whose
figures
were
still legible. Also
there
several rough yellow white
pots and hats
worn
straw.
by n?gresses made of black and white
was the gentle Don who had lectured on Cimabue
in Leighton
Where
House? He was nowhere. And what
there was in his place was something
so
so
so many
on
to
sided, that it is tempting
disturbing,
complex,
poach
trans
been
the novelists preserves and to say that Roger
had
become,
Fry
130
into a don Quixote;
into a wildly
fant?stica knight, prancing on
across the prospect
of old tins and fry
the queerest assortment
hung with
as
once
a
at
he
?such
looked
childrens party, where he
ing pans and chains
formed
came dressed
up at a cost of three and nine pence atWoolworths
shop.
ridiculous
something
laughable extravagant wildly
amusing in
There was
the transformation
that he made. Watts
paintings
Van Gogh
African cottons.
vanished;
took his place. Queen Anne chintz were overhung with
it was a source of constant
shouts of laughter.
Superficially
a pageant;
on
standing in the street and cheering
watching
It was
like
the fantastic
procession.
But no one was
the first
allowed
and the amusement
shock
seriousness
for long. For one thing, after
and the surprise and the laughter, his
to remain an outsider
was
turned upon
apparent. And then again, the attack left art proper, and
literature. Itwas then not so easy to stand outside and laugh.
The method of his approachwas by way of a little French book that had
Soon that book was
Claire by Marguerite
Audoux.
just appeared ?Marie
to tell me youve not read it? Ive
in everybodies
hands. "D'you mean
now
already given away twenty copies but heres another." The book is
it brought about still reverberate. For
But the discussions which
forgotten.
Marie Claire illustrated the fact that literature was affected by the same dis
ease as
were
in the old eddies. We
painting. We writers
circling vaguely
were
using old cliches. We
the line of the indictment.
Dante
were
That
was
using far too many adjectives. That was
led to frequent recourse to the bookcase.
not
was
the
Shakespeare. Wordsworth
the supreme poet,
was convicted. Keats was
moderns.
of
the
greatest
suspected. And
Shelley
a
he set to work with
underlined
poets and novelists;
pencil upon modern
was
their merely
All
their useless adjectives,
that
'dim',
literary phrases.
romantic,
all that echoed
and reverberated
was
abhorrent.
Notes
1. A version
chell A.
of this collection
is included
ed., NY:
1990.
Leaska,
HBJ,
inA Passionate Apprentice,
2. The Essays of VirginiaWoolf Volume 1, Andrew McNeillie,
HBJ, 1986, page 25.
Mit
ed., NY:
131
images and scenes that occur in other works
they contain
(see
out
notes 4 and 6
for
sketches
stand
the
Woolf
these
essay
way
below),
uses them. Here,
the scenes capture her aesthetic of the portrait essay?she
3. While
talks about
the use of imagination
4.
Memories"
"Incongruous
1930, and labelled, "Articles,
in portraiture
is from
essays,
its use.
as she demonstrates
a
notebook
holograph
fiction, reviews Volume
dated
June
IV." A ver
scene appears in her story "The
sion of its telescope
Searchlight"
(see A
Haunted House and Other Stories or The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia
of the scene also appear in various
edited by Susan Dick.) Versions
Woolf
notes
and sketches
including
"Ghosts"
(in The Complete
5. See The
ofHenry Taylor, Volume
Autobiography
Green & Co.,
don: Longmans,
1885, especially,
Shorter Fiction).
Taylor, Lon
pp. 45, 46, and 73.
1, Henry
a series of
is an undated
6. "Roger
impressions"
typescript with
Fry:
to
it bears little resemblance
corrections.
's holograph
While
Woolf
a
some
scenes
Moment
version
of
and Other Essays),
"Roger Fry" (see The
in
of
The
sketch
alone
focuses on
her
appear
Fry.
book-length
biography
the role of the imagination
in portraiture.
(and talk)
Deletions
to
the following words
and passages correspond
preceding
the printed text above, and indi
the numbers enclosed by brackets within
occurs
are
cate where
in
'smanuscript.
Woolf
the deletion
The deletions
The
numbers
preserved
incomplete
unfinished
here
as
word,
sentence.
a
an
single word,
they appear in her papers ?whether
a
a series of words
or
or
seem
that
full
unconnected,
Also
bracketed
here,
as in the
printed
text above,
are
individualwords especially difficult to decipher and a few editorial com
ments.
Deletions
from
"Incongruous
Memories"
some last in hi
account
1. altering
altering
a
narrati
death
bed
of a
about
the
person
2. on his death
in his excuse,
132
bed. The
His
does not matter?but
excuse
does not
the fact
of a well
remain
known
What
he said
it may
3. whatever
a matter
4. As
have been.
there is no reason
of fact,
and to the
5.
appears above
[An indecipherable word
(possibly "telling")
no
its
line indicating
precise placement.]
right, with
6. They
Whether
Often
they become
7. what
8. but
9.
even
is
legitimate,
it exceeds
It,
if they much
enlarge
&
the
represent
the text,
in the nearby
[Also,
10. other
if we
read into
is true or false,
some word
what
we
as
reason
legiti
It is true that if, called
?
before us
prove to be there, this may be because
our
to task, we cannot find
proof of
reading
cannot
it placed,Woolf
then put on
the shape they
far more
left margin,
without
she would
indicating where
have
has written: the proper lifewhich should be lived.]
to the thinker ?so
ideas peculiar
that at last he finds
himself believing that
11. But
12.
these
the curious
power
is odd,
13. What
some
14. make
authors
august
are too august
to be trifled with.
of the unsaid.
is
however,
little
15. Life was incredibly silent& lonely for the boy who lived there
with
his elderly
parents.
They
16.
[In the nearby left margin,
it placed, Woolf
has written:
towers
were
decayed
gentlefolk
trying
to
she would
have
indicating where
the outskirts
stood one of those peile
without
On
wh.]
17. where he had made himself a study full of such books as he
could borrow
met with
no
[While Woolf
ner of
drawing
that she meant
18. Arabia
or
perhaps
[response].
's deletion
in those
buy
The
cheap
at country
sales. This
youth
lines do not cover
lines along with
to delete all of the words
this entire passage, her man
the sense of the passage indicate
included
here.]
133
"was"
19.
has deleted the word
[Here, Woolf
it into the text.]
without
integrating
from "Roger
Deletions
Fry:
in "of the,"
and written
a series of
impressions"
1. suggested thatwe should collaborate in a life of him. [Only partially
crossed
a line
in the nearby left margin, without
its
indicating
a
to be the subject in
has written:
experi
biographical
out. Also,
Woolf
placement,
ment.]
2. biography
that was half fiction
crossed out. Also,
[Only partially
there is a faint line through part of the sentence following
this deletion.
a
con
to
be
the line appears
While
slip of the pen, it is possible thatWoolf
the em-dash as well.]
the part of the sentence following
sidered deleting
3.
[Here, Woolf
out
has typed two different
she preferred. With
which
indicating
she had first written,
sidered what
endings for this sentence with
the assumption
that she recon
I have provided
the second ending in
the printed text. The ending she typed first is: existing
side by side with
the world
that cared nothing for art; each held its own way in ignorance of
the other.]
4. Therefore
itwas
a considerable
some time about 1911 to meet
surprise,
in the flesh. There he was,
the man who
Roger
Fry for the second time
man who had spent the inter
in the garden that summer?the
had walked
on Italian art? But, in one sec
vening years lecturing at Leighton House
ond,
in the time
associations,
it took
to open
all those preconceptions
a door
were
into a room,
and come
torn up.
It is not
all those
there
strange
fore that
statement that itwas
's apparently inconsistent
[I have left intact Woolf
or
as
a
series of impressions
she made no deletions
and
single impression,
to it. However,
in the case of this sentence's ending and the
corrections
sentence that follows, Woolf
does show evidence of revision,
complete
5.
but without
making
a definitive
choice
between
printed text I have provided the words Woolf
two
typed in just above the
that she reconsidered
the assumption
with
original manuscript,
I have deleted the following:
had first written.
material
134
sense this was
true.]
In the
options.
is entirely
what
different.
she
In a